Maxi Jazz keeps the faith at 50
Andy Jones  |  by www.thisislondon.co.uk. All rights reserved. 2.04 | 19:01

The publicity material for Faithless proudly displays figures on how their million-selling greatest hits has easily beaten "best of" albums by all the other major dance acts.
One big number that goes unmentioned, however, is the age of stentorian-voiced rapper Maxwell "Maxi Jazz" Frazer. This year, the lithe, bald-headed Faithless frontman actually turns 50 - although in fairness, many of the early Nineties Ibiza veterans in last night's audience were showing their age more than him.


In fact, this granddaddy of arena trance put on a defiantly energetic performance at Wembley. And the crowd made plenty of noise in response, as well as dancing throughout the band's tireless 90-minute set.
Unfortunately, the lyrics could be irksome, with preachy new songs, such as Bombs, full of platitudinous guff in response to global problems.


But it helped that they played two dance anthems - God is a DJ and Insomnia - early on, with Frazer crying hoarsely: "Wembley won't let me sleep!" during the latter.
As a performance, it was certainly loud and relentless, the songs expertly mixed together like a club night.

Despite the volume, though, the music sounded thin on tunes such as A Kind of Peace, which lacked Faithless's euphoric synth interludes.
Still, with several band members, including two percussionists, their real talent was for massive, clattering endings, which they built towards over several minutes.
The fans didn't really take to the non-celebrity guest vocalists, though, choosing instead to reserve their cheers for Frazer, who was dancing topless on a podium by the encore.


"This was a proper night out," he said triumphantly. He might have added that it was a deafening one, too.

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Keywords: Maxi Jazz
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